planet ISSUE 4 I 2016 HOCKEY magazine GUATEMALA HOCKEY LONDON’S CHAMPIONS TROPHIES BREAKING THE EAST/WEST DIVIDE ISSUE 4 2016 20 56 INTERVIEW: TWENDE: 74 ABOUT PASSION CHANGING LIVES 2016 AWARDS It has been awards time over & GOALS THROUGH HOCKEY at the International Hockey Federation, with players, Lauren Penny, former 38 coaches, officials and hockey international player and founder enthusiasts everywhere of the Hockey Performance asked to cast their votes. The Academy took some time to NEW ERA nomination lists spanned the chat to two of the u21 players continents but in the final who will be representing the FOR GUATEMALA voting there was a distinctly African defending champions, orange feel to the top honours. South Africa. 62 BREAKING THE EAST/WEST REGULARS 44 DIVIDE 24 UNDER COVER Editor’s notes 7 YOUNG PLAYERS EXCITEMENT Sally joins the team 11 Speed of Hockey READY TO TAKE Indoor hockey took England by storm for a four by Lauren Penny 12 CENTRE STAGE week period over January 68 as the outdoor league took Gone Dutch: While the best senior and break and all the action CAPTAIN A Canadian on teams in the world will turned to the short game. Sabbatical to Hockey’s be eyeing Rio as their big target this year, the next COURAGEOUS Promised Land generation of hockey stars by Lauren Logush 17 have their own seminal ENTERS RECORD moment at the end of the year when the Junior Hockey World Cup gets BOOKS underway. 50 It was the 2012 Olympic Games that saw Kate Richardson-Walsh break KNOCKOUT into public consciousness after she courageously led HOCKEY EVENT Great Britain to the bronze medal despite suffering a As the domestic season broken jaw in the middle 32 draws to its conclusion, of the pool matches. Until Stephen Findlater and then, Richardson-Walsh MATIAS SHINES Sarah Juggins had been well-known in preview the dramatic final hockey circles, now she had AT COPA DEL REY competition to be played. become a national hero. COVER: Lidewij Welten in action Kia Kaha Media Group PO Box 37 978, Parnell, Auckland 1001, New Zealand +64 21 757 747 [email protected] THE TEAM PUBLISHER Neville ‘Ned’ Dawson EUROPEAN EDITOR / DEPUTY EDITOR Sarah Juggins CONTRIBUTING EDITORS John Whiting Lawrence West Shevaun Sly Diana Dobson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS James Philip Harris Iain McAuslan Greg Thompson Russell Brown GRAPHIC DESIGN Carolina De Armas @ Dot Design 4 planet HOCKEY www.planethockeymag.com planet HOCKEY 5 planet HOCKEY magazine HAVE YOUR SAY! www.planethockeyforum.com CHAMPIONS TROPHY BY TWO By Sarah Juggins o, both the men’s and women’s Champions Trophies are to Sbe held in London, four years after the ‘Smurf Turf’ was a star attraction at the 2012 Olympic Games. For many of the players this will be a step back in time, with some great and not so great memories. Great Britain’s Kate Richardson-Walsh may ruefully rub her face and remember both the pain of playing through the horrific injury that left her jawbone shattered, and the ecstasy of winning a bronze medal. For Jaap Stockmann, London was all about disappointment after the Netherland’s ‘keeper produced save after save to keep his team in the final, only to see the ball slipped past him, after a poor clearance in the dying minutes of the match, sending the gold medal back to Germany. But that was then, and this year it is all about another date with destiny… in Rio. The teams that line up for the Champions Trophy in London will be in the final stages of preparation for their Olympic journey and that is why the action at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will be nothing short of spectacular. Hockey venues around the world have shown they can put on a great show. The 2014 World Cup in the Hague was a fantastic feast of hockey, with a vibrant, orange-clad atmosphere every time the Netherlands took to the pitch. Whichever venue is hosting an event in Argentina, you can be certain that the moment the first notes of the Argentine national anthem plays, until the final whistle blows, the stadium will be rocking to the tune of the blue and white spectators. And it is the same in India – the crowds love to see their national heroes in action and the cacophony of sound is unbelievable at times. However, what London managed to do in 2012, was make the stadium feel like a home crowd no matter what nation was playing. The capital city is such a multi-cultural hot-potch, that, no matter what nations were playing, there was always a sizeable ‘home crowd’. And if Great Britain were not playing, then the crowd would good-naturedly get behind whichever team needed the most support. planet HOCKEY 7 Whether the Champions Trophy events will create the same buzz remains to be seen. Certainly England Hockey are already pulling out all the stops to make it a spectacular showcase. The EuroHockey Finals, held at the venue last June, were an indication of how successful a hockey event could be. Every England game was a sell-out and the final afternoon was as noisy and excited as any sports event gets, but there were also matches where the spectators stayed away and the players performed to a handful of family members. The difference between the 2012 Olympic Games and the 2015 EuroHockey Finals was that the former event was part of a multi-sport experience. People wanted to go to the Olympics – no matter what the event. And hockey was one of the events which had a large capacity and relatively cheap tickets. At the EuroHockey event, it was largely hockey fans who were attracted, and there are only so many of them. The beauty of using a venue for major events in quick succession is that you can tweak things and learn from mistakes. England Hockey will have gathered a lot of feedback from the EuroHockey event. They will know that the ‘Hockey Village’ was popular; that the street food was, on the whole, well-supported – although the food of some nations was better received than others! They will know that if it rains, there is a dearth of shelter; they will know that the army of volunteers are nothing short of fantastic; and they will know they have to get their ticketing levels right if they are to attract people from a wider cohort than just the hockey community. The women’s Champions Trophy was always going to be in London, the men’s event being moved there at this late stage is both a bonus and a challenge to England Hockey. The bonus is in having yet another major international on home turf and the kudos that gives to the hosting nation; the challenge is in selling the event to a public that falls in and out of love with hockey with indecent haste. Sarah Juggins Deputy Editor, Planet Hockey NB: Here at Planet Hockey, we believe in audience participation, so email/write/tweet to me and share your thoughts on all things hockey - twitter: @sjuggs15 8 planet HOCKEY fdsfds PASSION FOR PERFECTION GRYPHON TOUR STICK RANGE The perfect balance between power and control. • One lay-up, five shapes • Silicon Sleeve Technology (SS) SEE THE FULL 2016 RANGE AT GRYPHONHOCKEY.COM SAM planet HOCKEY 9 Insurance Advice for Life With Rely you get the very best advice and are able to choose from the leading New Zealand insurance companies. Our Team will work with your best interests in mind to put in place a protection plan that meets all your needs with affordable and relevant insurance policies. We know that this is about YOUR needs and meeting YOUR objectives. Give us a call 0800 7359 123 we can help you. HEALTH INSURANCE LIFE INSURANCE INCOME PROTECTION ou TRAUMA INSURANCE ce y can h ran av su e MORTGAGE PROTECTION In t s e b e h t s i r e k o r b d o o g [email protected] www.rely.co.nz A 10 planet HOCKEY SALLY JOINS THE TEAM ally Munday has been chief executive of England Hockey since 2008 and, during Sthat time, she has overseen a revolution in hockey in England and Great Britain. She was given the MBE by Queen Elizabeth in 2013 and has won admirers around the hockey world for her straight talking and clear-sighted vision for hockey’s development. Under Munday’s leadership, England Hockey – which is the national governing body for hockey in the UK and is responsible for both the England Hockey teams and teams representing Great Brit-ain – has become a professional, commercially-aware entity. The 2012 Olympics were a huge suc-cess story for England Hockey with thousands of people, who had never really watched the game, flooding through the gates. Sally Munday has always worked in sport, firstly for the Lawn Tennis Association and then for Eng-land Hockey in a regional development role. She was also team manager for Slough Hockey Club, which at the time was one of the pre-eminent clubs in Europe, and for the south of England region-al team. One of the things that makes Sally Munday such a successful chief executive is the fact that her career pathway to the top has encompassed so many roles in hockey along the way, giving her a unique understanding of how the sport works at all levels. The next few years are important times for Munday and her team. One of her dreams was to cre-ate a home for hockey in the UK and the Lee Valley Hockey Centre on the Queen Elizabeth Olym-pic Park is proving worthy of the title.